Patent retracted

Many thanks to the members of the community that brought this to my attention — and here’s the latest. The patent application was a mistake and one that should not have happened. To fix this, Microsoft will be removing the patent application. Our sincere apologies to Michael Kölling and the BlueJ community.’”

Ok. They did it, but? This raises lot of questions and proves lot of things.

The U.S. software patent ecosystem is a mess.

How many similar “stolen” ideas has Microsoft filed or patented?

Seriously I don’t believe this was a evil move from somebody trying to steal from BlueJ, but I do think this is the consequence of a business model and company culture, where they abuse an already screwed system, and try to flood the patent office with crap they even call intellectual property.